TROUBLED soul, are you bowed down beneath the burden of your sins? Accept, in simple faith, the above Divine statement, and salvation is yours. Are you toiling, working, striving to be better than you are?
Read carefully these blessed verses, and you will see the utter fruitlessness of all your efforts in the flesh to please God.
Do you say, like thousands more, “But we must try?” Try! Try to be better! Try to improve the flesh; try to make up for the misspent past to a holy God; try to expiate your sins by your self-righteousness! for such it is. You may as well try to change the Ethiopian’s skin or the leopard’s spots (Jer. 13:2323Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? then may ye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil. (Jeremiah 13:23)). When you can accomplish this, then may you do good who are accustomed to do evil. “If I wash myself with snow-water, and make my hands never so clean; yet shalt thou plunge me in the ditch, and mine own clothes shall abhor me” (Job 9:30, 3130If I wash myself with snow water, and make my hands never so clean; 31Yet shalt thou plunge me in the ditch, and mine own clothes shall abhor me. (Job 9:30‑31)). “For though thou wash thee with niter, and take thee much soap, yet thine iniquity is marked before me, saith the Lord God” (Jer. 2:2222For though thou wash thee with nitre, and take thee much soap, yet thine iniquity is marked before me, saith the Lord God. (Jeremiah 2:22)).
No; salvation is not to him that worketh, but to him that worketh, not. God’s thoughts are not as ours. The natural thoughts of the natural man are always opposed to the thoughts of God. “Every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (Gen. 6:55And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. (Genesis 6:5)). Man thinks it is to him that worketh; God says it is “to him, that worketh, not.” The little word not makes all the difference. The greater part of the religious machinery of Christendom is founded on the forgetfulness of it, and tens of thousands perish eternally through failing to pay heed to it.
Men work, and set others to work, in numberless ways for salvation; but God says distinctly that it is “to him that worketh not.” His word is clear, plain, and decisive― “worketh not.” You may have your own thoughts about it, dear reader; but there stands the imperishable statement of the Word of God, “worketh not.” God says what He means, and means exactly what He says. You may fancy it means something slightly different; you may pare it down; you may add to it; or you may pay no heed to it; ―it in no way alters it. Salvation is “to him that worketh, not.” You may be saved today, this very hour, now, without a single work of any kind whatsoever―past, present or future. Whoever you may be, wherever you may dwell, whatever you may have done, God’s worketh not is for you.
One work only is necessary for a sinner’s salvation, the finished work of Christ; hence your works are entirely excluded as the ground of your salvation. They are all imperfect, faulty, sinful; but the finished work of Christ is perfect, complete, infinite, and God is glorified thereby. Hence it is that we read, “But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness” (Rom. 4:55But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness. (Romans 4:5)), Bow to the word of God, believe on Him, and the blessing is yours.
How very simple! Salvation is of grace. If a man does so much work for another, clearly it is not grace to pay him for the work done. It is a debt owed. Hence, also, if a sinner does a number of good works (!) in order to be saved, God is his debtor, grace is ignored and set aside, and the sinner can take the credit of his own salvation. But the Divine plan is “to him that worketh not.” To him that ceases from his own fleshly efforts to be good, casting his deadly doings down, “but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly,” the faith of that man is counted for righteousness. This is the way of grace, and all the glory redounds to God. The wretched heart of man struggles to the last moment to take the glory to itself. “To him that worketh not” makes nothing of man. But “believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly” magnifies God’s grace, and glorifies Him forever.
Dear reader, will you give up your works, and believe on God? We are justified by faith, and not by works. God justifies the ungodly. Who? The ungodly. Not the godly―note it well—but the ungodly. If God justified the godly, nobody would be justified at all. Such a people is not to be found. True godliness is the fruit of justification, not the ground of it. God justifies the ungodly, that they may become godly. Do not imagine that God justifies ungodliness; far be the thought. But when a man learns, in the Presence of God, that all his doings are mixed with sin, and confesses he is ungodly, then He justifies him from his ungodliness.
“Christ died for the ungodly.” Hence God justifies the believer on the ground of His finished work. His faith is counted for righteousness. His wickedness condemns him; his best works are mixed with sin; his own righteousness is as filthy rags;―but on the ground of the infinite sacrifice and finished work of Christ on Calvary, God, having raised Him from the dead, justifies the soul that believes on Him. “Even as David also describeth the blessedness of the man, unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works, saying, Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord will not impute sin” (Rom. 4:6-86Even as David also describeth the blessedness of the man, unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works, 7Saying, Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered. 8Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin. (Romans 4:6‑8)).
Dear reader, is this blessedness yours? Precious, soul-comforting doctrine of the living and imperishable Word, God imputeth righteousness without works. There it is, over and over again, in every Bible in every language in Christendom. To him that worketh not (Rom. 4:55But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness. (Romans 4:5)); without works (Rom. 4:66Even as David also describeth the blessedness of the man, unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works, (Romans 4:6)); not according to our works (2 Tim. 1:99Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began, (2 Timothy 1:9)); not by works of righteousness which we have done (Titus 3:55Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost; (Titus 3:5)). Of works? Nay (Rom. 3:2727Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? of works? Nay: but by the law of faith. (Romans 3:27)); not of works (Eph. 2:99Not of works, lest any man should boast. (Ephesians 2:9)).
“The good for nothing, helpless ones,
Find mercy on the spot;
For thus the Gospel message runs,
‘To him that worketh not.’”
O that one could write these golden words with the point of a diamond upon every self-righteous heart in Christendom! How many a tempest-tossed soul would find a haven of rest and peace, did they but take God at His word with the simplicity of a little child.
“Weary, working, burdened one,
Wherefore toil you so?
Cease your doing, all was done
Long, long ago.”
Yes, troubled heart, the finished work of Christ’ could bridge the awful gulf that separated a lost, guilty sinner from the Living God. The rotten planks of human righteousness will land all who trust in them in the lake of fire forever. Once again we press it upon you, reader, as we value your precious soul, God says, “To him that worketh not.”
But are there no works whatever? some may reply. Ah, yes, there are works which God can accept, but only those which are the fruit of faith.
Time enough to talk about them when you have rested in simple faith upon the finished work of Christ, ―when you have believed God, and are justified. As long as you are in your sins, every work, act, deed, word, thought’ is defiled. “In me, that is, in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing” (Rom. 7:1818For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not. (Romans 7:18)). “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked” (Jer. 17:99The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? (Jeremiah 17:9)). “Every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (Gen. 6:55And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. (Genesis 6:5)). But justified, we receive the Holy Ghost, who is alone the power to produce good works, the fruit and evidence of faith, to the glory of His Name.
E. H. C.